Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, a historian and veteran Jewish educator, told a Livingston audience April 26 that Jews can help foster religious pluralism as an antidote to Islamic fundamentalism.

In a world with religious extremists and terrorism, "pluralism really offers hope, because Islam is a serious, committed religion," said Greenberg. "It is not going to be defeated by skepticism and secularism. It is going to be straightened out by the reassertion of pluralism by its moderates, and they need support from the American model of the Jewish and Christian experience."

The New York-based rabbi is the president of the Jewish Life Network and the founding president of CLAL – the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Greenberg served as chair of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council from 2000 to 2002.

His keynote address came as the Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest presented its 2007 Lasting Impressions Award to West Orange attorney Murray Laulicht, a past president of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.

Greenberg saluted Laulicht's support for pluralism projects at home and in Israel.

"The Talmud says every human being should be treated as if they were infinitely valuable," said Greenberg, an Orthodox rabbi. "God is not white or black. God is not a Jew or a gentile."

Decades of interfaith cooperation in America taught "that Jews didn't have horns. Jews here discovered gentiles – not in the Holocaust or the neighborhoods of Poland where anti-Semitism was rife – but in the menschlichkeit, the decency, the goodness of day to day in a business context, in a social neighborhood."

Greenberg called pluralism a "rejection of the old absolutism," which, he said, was "an attempt to uphold the glories of your own religion by teaching the degradation of others."

Furthermore, pluralism meant "the end of persecution. The real beneficiaries are not just the people who live and let live but the people whose own religion has respect. It is teaching love of God with integrity, not with violence. The result is a civic peace in this country. We've had a Catholic president. We've had Jewish candidates. Now we have a Mormon candidate," he said, referring to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is seeking the GOP nomination.

Earlier, as Laulicht accepted a silver yad, or Torah pointer, from JHS president Jerome Horowitz, he spoke of his own commitment to fostering religious pluralism and his commitment to Holocaust education.

Noting that he "owed a special debt to his father," who was killed by the Nazis, Laulicht said, "I wanted to make sure he didn't die in vain."

Laulicht was instrumental in creating and furthering the work of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education.